Public interest journalism for Greenwich and SE London

Stand down Denise: Residents call on Greenwich Council leader to quit her planning role

Local residents in east Greenwich are demanding council leader Denise Hyland stands down from the borough’s main planning committee after it was revealed she is the only council leader in London who is regularly directly involved in taking decisions about major new developments.

Hyland, who has led the council since June 2014, told the planning meeting that the terminal’s planned 31-storey residential tower was “nothing”, criticising residents for not bringing up air pollution fears when the proposals first came before the planning committee some years back – even though plans for the terminal have substantially changed since then.

She also said that on a trip to a cruise terminal in Southampton, she could not “see” any air pollution there – despite the fact that it is usually invisible. Her performance at the planning board earned her an appearance in this week’s Private Eye magazine.

The planning board shrugged off air pollution concerns about the London City Cruise Port, and the lack of any comprehensive, timely environmental assessment. It accepted developers’ claims that it would be too expensive to install on-shore generating equipment which would reduce the impact of ships spending extended stays at the terminal, despite European guidelines recommending this system is used.

Local MP Matt Pennycook and councillors Stephen Brain and Chris Lloyd were among the objectors, along with Tower Hamlets councillors and Isle of Dogs residents.

Research by EGRA – independently verified by this website – shows no other borough in London allows its leader such a prominent role in taking planning decisions, a role where politics should play no part.

Large or contentious decisions across Greenwich borough are usually taken by a committee of 14 councillors, called the Planning Board.

Most boroughs operate a similar system – though using different names for the committees – which usually see less high-profile cases taken by area committees.

But Denise Hyland is the only one of London’s 28 council leaders (a further four are run by elected mayors) to regularly sit on her council’s main planning committee.

The only other council to permit a formal role for its leader in planning decisions is the controversial Conservative-run authority in Barnet. But even here, Richard Cornelius is only a substitute member of its planning committee, deputising for his fellow Conservative councillors where necessary – a role he hasn’t carried out since June 2014.

Indeed, 13 out of London’s 32 boroughs only allow backbench councillors to take major planning decisions – removing any suspicion that may arise from having high-profile councillors taking sensitive formal decisions.

Denise Hyland’s accession t the council leadership as reported by its weekly newspaper, Greenwich Time

Of the 14 planning board meetings held since Hyland became leader, she has attended nine of them.

This continues a system which began under Hyland’s predecessor Chris Roberts, who started sitting on the planning board in 2007. Roberts did not take part in the 2011 meeting which gave the terminal its original green light, after appearing on TV promoting the scheme.

But Hyland – then regeneration cabinet member – did take part in that meeting, then praising the scheme as “world class”.

Advice from the Local Government Association says that “members of a planning committee… need to avoid any appearance of bias or of having predetermined their views before taking a decision on a planning application or on planning policies”.

Hyland’s successor in that role, Danny Thorpe, has inherited her position the board. Just six other boroughs – Barking, Camden, Harrow, Lambeth, Newham and Richmond – allow his counterparts to assist in making planning decisions.

“We are concerned that your presence as council leader alongside the regeneration cabinet member could make the planning board susceptible to political pressure and decisions made on policy and party lines rather than in the wider public or community interest.

“This concern is reinforced by your tendency and Councillor Thorpe’s tendency to sum up and make your positions known before voting takes place. The recent decision on the cruise liner terminal is a good case in point.

“Our community feels extremely frustrated at the way in which our attempts to raise legitimate concerns over the development of our area are not being taken seriously and are being batted away through a process that is less than scrupulous at times and is susceptible to what we perceive as potential political interference.

“We call on you to restore our confidence in the borough and the decisions it makes and we formally request that you step down from the Planning Board. We need to have confidence that our borough is making the right decisions for the right reasons and operating in the same way as other London boroughs as part of the statutory process.”

Meanwhile, it has emerged that European money could have been available to help fund the London City Cruise Port fund on-shore generating equipment.

Trade publication Ship Technology, which accuses the developers of “cutting corners”, reports that the EU can fund up to half the costs of research and 20% of the costs of installation if a member state opts to use such a system. But councillors were not told this before they made their decision.

7pm update: Former Greenwich councillor Hayley Fletcher, who sat on the planning board alongside council leader Chris Roberts, responded to this story…

8 comments

Spot on. Anyone who attended that meeting will know that EGRA made a well organized, well reasoned, professional and fact based case. It was undermined by Councillor Hyland who seemed hell bent on pushing this scheme through whatever the evidence, when it was screaming out for a deferral. It was appalling that a viability study was provided to councillors only minutes before the meeting. All the facts provided above convince me even more that the planning system did not work well that night.

Truth is most of the pollution from cruise ships running oil fired engines at the terminal could be stripped out by running a line from the new gas fired generators at Greenwich power station, but locals don’t like the power station either.

I’ve spent the past couple of months actively campaigning against the cruise terminal on the grounds of pollution. I’m a member of EGRA and I’m in pretty close touch with all the other campaigners. I don’t think I’ve heard a single person say they’d oppose using Greenwich power station to provide onshore power for the ships.

[…] Five years after I stepped down as chair, a few things have changed in Greenwich. The planning board today has an able new chair, Mark James, and only two cabinet members sitting on it, the council’s Leader Denise Hyland and Danny Thorpe. cabinet member for regeneration. But the continued presence of two such senior councillors, and the suspicion that they are leaning on others to approve controversial applications for high-rise flats and a cruise liner terminal on the Greenwich Peninsula, has raised the hackles of the East Greenwich Residents’ Association, who have written an open letter to Cllr Hyland asking her to step down from the planning board. […]